August 18, 2014

Liberia: Working on the Ebola response mechanism

While we continue to call on Liberians to take all preventive measures in curtailing further the spread of the virus across the communities and country in general, we are equally concerned about the wave of deaths and how the Task Force is coordinating itself in tackling this situation especially with the straight instruction that nobody is to touch a dead person or someone suspected of Ebola.

As we continue to thank the Ministry of Health and Social welfare for creating a massive awareness strategy that has brought onboard several national partners including the Ministry of Internal Affairs, National Defense and the National Police with special assistance from the General Services Agency, we are also urging this coordination to beef up a proper Ebola response mechanism that will match the contributions already provided so that the process will attract more assistance if it is to be eradicated.

Today, we are constrained to reinforce this editorial with a clarion call to the Task Force on its response mechanism component that seems to be very weak because of the heap of hopelessness the community members have expressed in anger by their day-to-day protest action or road blocks.

If the mechanism is not coordinated on how to remove the dead from in communities, the disbeliefs by some Liberians will grow and the virus will continue to spread as it is difficult to see a love one die much more to sit and watch their dead body lay in the street or floor of a room without being attended to for days.

For us, we are convinced that if there is a proper response mechanism established by the Ebola Task Force, the team will be able to quarantine the facility or home as well as remove the dead body on time so that the family members do not get in contact with the person out of anger and there will not be protest from family members or community leaders.

Comments

While we continue to call on Liberians to take all preventive measures in curtailing further the spread of the virus across the communities and country in general, we are equally concerned about the wave of deaths and how the Task Force is coordinating itself in tackling this situation especially with the straight instruction that nobody is to touch a dead person or someone suspected of Ebola.

As we continue to thank the Ministry of Health and Social welfare for creating a massive awareness strategy that has brought onboard several national partners including the Ministry of Internal Affairs, National Defense and the National Police with special assistance from the General Services Agency, we are also urging this coordination to beef up a proper Ebola response mechanism that will match the contributions already provided so that the process will attract more assistance if it is to be eradicated.

Today, we are constrained to reinforce this editorial with a clarion call to the Task Force on its response mechanism component that seems to be very weak because of the heap of hopelessness the community members have expressed in anger by their day-to-day protest action or road blocks.

If the mechanism is not coordinated on how to remove the dead from in communities, the disbeliefs by some Liberians will grow and the virus will continue to spread as it is difficult to see a love one die much more to sit and watch their dead body lay in the street or floor of a room without being attended to for days.

For us, we are convinced that if there is a proper response mechanism established by the Ebola Task Force, the team will be able to quarantine the facility or home as well as remove the dead body on time so that the family members do not get in contact with the person out of anger and there will not be protest from family members or community leaders.